Interior designer Peggy Sellwood helps Joan Steffend, host of HGTV's Decorating Cents, transform a bachelor's colorless living room into a cozy and colorful room bursting with personality. A warmed-up color palette and whimsical yet rugged western accessories give this room a fresh new look for less than $500. The boring beige living room is taken in a new direction with a color palette of terra cotta, brown and sage green, which gives the space warmth and energy. The white walls are the first to go, covered with a warm terra-cotta. The woodwork is left white for contrast. A painted pattern of four sage-green diamonds, each with an antique horseshoe centered in the middle, brings attention to the soffit above the piano window. Old furniture is brightened up with fabric or paint. The worn and tattered cushions of 1970s-style furniture are disguised with western-motif tapestry slipcovers in rich brown and dark green (figure A). A black vinyl cushion cover, stapled to the seat of an old rocker, revitalizes the piece with the look of leather. With a fresh coat of sage-green paint, an existing wall unit becomes a nifty display case for cowboy accessories, including a black metal horse, fresh sunflowers and an authentic cowboy hat perched atop an old ammunition box. Indian prayers, decoupaged to the freshly painted cabinet, add a timeworn look to the back of the cabinet shelves. The decoupaged look wasn't successful on the front doors of the cabinet. In the process of scraping and scrubbing the decoupage off the front doors of the cabinet in preparation for repainting, a perfectly distressed aged look was achieved by accident. Inexpensive rubber-covered utility screws installed at the top corners of a pair of windows serve as curtain hooks for swags of olive-green fleece. The fleece is draped and knotted over the hooks, and a braid made from all the fabrics used in the room is arranged on top of the fleece. A colorful Turkish rug wall hanging between the windows completes the look (figure B).
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